The Positive Impact of Business Workflow Automation on SMEs

Business workflow automation is an approach to design, streamline, execute, and automate multiple tasks routed between technology, people, and data depending on pre-defined business rules. The process makes the task flows, information, and documents across activities to perform independently according to business rules. Automation is a straightforward process and gets executed regularly to improve everyday productivity within organizations. Business workflow automation shifts the performance of organizational activities from human beings to software programs. An organization identifies tasks and activities that make up a job to automate a workflow. The next step is creating the logic and rules on how the activities must get done. Finally, the organization programs the business workflow automation software with pre-defined business rules. The rules and logic are instructions that tell a program about the actions to take and ways to move from one task or activity to another. The automation software uses logic and rules to perform multiple tasks and activities from the start to the end so that the team members do not have to handle the job manually. A report suggests that 90% of knowledge workers found that automation improved their jobs, and another 66% said that the process has made them productive. All organizations can benefit from business workflow automation by automating repetitive notifications, tasks, and permissions. Every department can utilize workflow automation and automate repetitive tasks that do not require significant decision-making.

Impact Of Business Workflow Automation on SMEs

Surveys have proved that small business workers work like regular employees. The workers put in 60 hours or more per week. Business workflow automation can free up a small business owner’s time and allow the team members to focus on more important job responsibilities and priority tasks. Workflow automation also helps SMEs save money. The automated processes are efficient and less error-prone, unlike manual processes. The process means that business organizations can save money and time by automating routine tasks. For these reasons, business workflow automation is a valuable tool for SMEs. It’s a proven fact that automation has a significant impact on SMEs. Here is how it helps them grow.

1. Automated Lead Qualification

Lead qualification is a time-consuming process for all businesses. Workflow automation tool includes lead qualification tools that help speed up processes. SMEs can use the tool to create quizzes, surveys, payment pages, and calculators within a short period without coding or design experiences. The process allows SMEs to qualify leads faster and determine whether they are interested in the products and services. Automation is a powerful tool for lead qualification and allows SMEs to collect significant information from customers for future purposes.

2. Sales Automation

Sales processes are time-consuming and rely on gut instinct which makes it difficult to scale sales operations. Business workflow automation automates the sales processes, which in turn allows SMEs to streamline the workflow, making it easier to collect payments. This way, SMEs can use multiple tools to collect payments from customers directly from content pages. SMEs can enhance their sales processes by generating a QR code that links directly to their payment page, allowing customers to easily and quickly make payments, ultimately increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction.

3. Email Automation

Email remains one of the most effective means of communication for businesses with customers. Business workflow automation automates the process of sending out emails, allowing businesses to send customized emails to their customers. The process allows SMEs to keep in touch with the customers regularly without any manual inputs.

4. Onboarding Automation

Customer onboarding is a time-consuming process for businesses. So, automating the onboarding process can help save time and money. The process includes collecting customer information, account setups, and provisioning access to products and services. Business process automation enables automated onboarding, which is a great experience for customers because it eliminates the requirement to contact customer service for assistance with onboarding processes. The system also ensures that everything is set up in the correct accounts and provides access to services instantly.

5. Business Process Analysis

The top management of an organization must define objectives and implementation timelines. The objectives must get defined by conducting a detailed business process analysis (BPA) that involves all departments impacted by automation processes. The internal core group of the organization can get help from external expert consultants depending on the BPA inputs to perform gap analysis and identify automation solutions to improve profitability and productivity. After the automation solutions get identified, business workflow software can be used to perform a cost-benefit analysis, solution feasibility analysis, operating expenditure, identify capital expenditure and decide the commercial viability of the solution.

6. Auditable Records

SMEs can record every transaction, workflow, payment, deal, and other significant tasks using business workflow automation solutions. The process makes it possible to track every business process and step; see who conducted the tasks and when. So, business workflow automation enables efficient audit trails for SMEs that help promote data security and accountability. The organizations can also demonstrate compliance with rules and official controls using automation services.

7. Human Resources

The SME sector faces the critical issue of the retention of unskilled human resources. In this case, SMEs can use business workflow automation to automate unskilled and repetitive tasks. This way, automation helps SMEs reduce their human resource dependence.

8. Time-Saving

Business workflow automation saves time for SME employees and clients and allows them to work smarter towards the improvement of products and services. The process charges machines with rule-based, recurrent tasks and allows employees to concentrate on work that requires critical thinking abilities and creativity.

9. Increased Productivity

The app integration software has a positive impact on increasing profitability and productivity and translating into increased margins.

10. Increased Product Consistency

Business workflow automation automates repetitive processes using built-in tools to deliver product consistency that results in repeated high-quality product output.

11. Market Expansion

Increased automation leads to increased productivity that provides an opportunity for the top management teams to expand existing business operations and explore new markets.

12. Better Standardization

Business organizations have a large workforce that includes employees working on the same processes in different ways. However, the resources that they pick to conduct tasks may not always be efficient. Business workflow automation provides solutions that follow the same steps and rules to conduct tasks. The process prevents SMEs from straying away from the rules that define them. The automation software and tools help standardize processes to achieve consistent results and increase transparency within the organization.

Summing It Up

Business workflow automation uses rule-based logic to launch multiple task series that run without human intervention. The automated workflows can conduct tasks and activities after the rule and logic establishment. From sending emails and reminders to scheduling tasks and triggering drip campaigns, workflow automation work wonders for businesses like SMEs. The best part here is that the tasks get conducted without team intervention.

SMEs that leverage self-operating processes using workflow automation can save time and money, boost productivity, and diminish errors. Workflow automation relies on multiple statements that trigger tasks after which it starts working depending on the action taken by leads, employees, or stakeholders in businesses.

You will find multiple workflow automation software in the market that can work efficiently to enhance your business activities. One such software is ZapUp by 500Apps, which is one of the best ways to integrate apps into your system. The software helps connect apps with multiple third-party applications at your convenience. ZapUp has a visual drag-and-drop builder that helps automate all tasks and activities without coding. You can get real-time updates and manage all activities from a single platform using the software. So, if your business is looking for advanced business process automation, ZapUp is your answer.

Here are the features of ZapUp.

• It allows you to automate unlimited workflows in your business.
• It offers you detailed workflow insights to enhance your tasks.
• It ensures the best application management that allows integrating apps efficiently within the system.
• It has custom connectors that allow the apps and tools to integrate with custom fields.
• It helps automate business-critical processes within a short period.
• It enables streamlining operations and ensures that every activity progresses on time.
• It helps personalize apps to meet specific requirements.
• It allows apps to engage with multiple third-party services without the requirement of unique integrations.
• To know more about the app, visit the 500apps website today!